The one that got away...

I debated whether to write about this cake that I did back in August for my niece's first birthday because the outcome was less than optimal. The purpose of my blog is to write and share my hobby with others and that includes projects or situations that may be a challenge or that may not be a success. This is one such project.  

One may look at the picture above and wonder what the challenges might have been. Overall it's a pretty cake. My sister-in-law wanted something pink and girly and suggested an ombré cake. She doesn't like fondant very much so I did a frosting-covered layer on the bottom and a fondant-covered layer for the top.  

The ruffled flower was made by cutting about 1-inch wide strips of thinly rolled modelling paste and rolling a modelling stick back and forth along the edges to create a ruffled effect. I was a bit short on time to make this cake as I had been working late and getting ready for a trip overseas. The flower ended up being a tad off-centre. In retrospect I should have been taking a step back to look at the cake after each flower layer to ensure that it was straight or in addition to marking the cake for the outer edge of the flower I could have also marked the centre of the flower. This would have not required a significant amount of extra time and would have ensured a straighter flower. Alas, that wasn't the suboptimal part of this cake project. 

For the ombré rosettes, I used a fairly large star tip. I portioned out just under a third of my batch of frosting and tinted it dark pink. For the next shade of pink, I just added white frosting to the leftover dark pink to get a lighter shade and then repeated for the lightest colour pink. This part was decently problem-free with the exception of some of the edges not being very neat. 

I placed the cake on a fondant-covered board as I usually do, and was annoyed that I managed to get a fingerprint on one side of the board near the front. The cake was placed off-centre to allow room for my niece's name. 

Like many of my other cakes, I placed the board on a cake stand to photograph it. Sometimes to get a good angle, I move the cake around on the table, sometimes I stand on my tiptoes, sometimes I stand on a chair. I had really gotten all of the photos that I needed and then I thought, 'ah, just one more'. I moved the cake stand back to get a better angle. Since I had placed the cake off-centre on the board, the centre of gravity was toward the back. As I pushed the cake stand back, the cake slipped off of the cake stand, and I'm not sure if I froze but everything really did feel like slow motion. The cake slipped onto the table, then slid off of the table and onto the floor. Surprisingly the cake landed upright however the impact of the fall caused the cake to collapse. It was not salvageable. This was not a reality tv show or a bakery where there might be extra staff, buttercream/frosting lying around, extra fondant, extra sponge cake. I had nothing. My husband held me while I sobbed. And then I went into panic mode. There was an hour until the party started but it would take an hour to get there. I thought that maybe I could make another cake and get it there by the time people had finished eating. I sent my husband to the grocery store to get more butter. I called my sister for reinforcements. I turned on the oven to preheat. As I watched the oven climb slowly in temperature, I came to the realization that it would be impossible. I called my husband and told him to forget the butter. I called my sister to tell her not to bother coming over. My husband called his sister to tell her what had happened. I felt awful on the way to the party. I felt awful when I arrived at the party and my niece was wearing a dress that matched the destroyed cake perfectly. It didn't take too long for me to be able to laugh a little about it and thankfully the cake was for family and they were very understanding.

I don't really have a moral to this story. As I am just a hobbyist, it is unrealistic for me to have extra cakes on hand in case something like this happens. Perhaps don't place cakes off-centre on cake boards or be extra careful while taking photos. In the grand scheme of things, it's just a cake. Although if you've ever watched Kings of Pastry, don't tell the MOF hopefuls that it's just sugar. In the end, I was there to celebrate the first year of a wonderful, beautiful, healthy little girl. 

Pride Cake

Happy Pride! This weekend, between appliance shopping and finalizing the kitchen plans for our house renovations, I decided to make a rainbow cake. 

Back in April, I made this Care Bear cake for my nephew's birthday. I posted a preview of the uncovered cake and a friend exclaimed, "It is a cake for the gays!" As such, I promised to make another rainbow-themed cake for June. 

I wanted the cake to be simple so that the flower stood out i.e. no other decorations, and no border around the bottom. As such, it was really important to have a clean edge on the bottom of the cake. 

I decided to try something a bit different, and propped up my cake on a 6-inch styrofoam dummy so that I could cleanly cut away the excess fondant after covering it. This did not turn out very well. The fondant ended up stretching quite a bit due to the weight and because it was so thin, it was not going to be a smooth background for the flower. In retrospect, I should have covered the cake on a flat surface, trimmed away some of the excess, and then elevated it to cut the bottom edge cleanly with a paring knife. 

To fix the messy looking fondant, I actually rolled out another 2 pounds of fondant, brushed the already covered cake with cooled, boiled water and re-covered the cake. Yes, a bit of a pricey fix, but I really did not want a lumpy fondant job ruining the whole aesthetic of the cake. Besides, if I use up my fondant, it's one less thing I have to lug over to our new home. 

I have wanted to make a ruffled flower on a simple white cake for some time. This was the perfect opportunity to try this out in beautiful bright colours. It also gives a hint of what's to come upon cutting the cake. I tried a few different tools to ruffle the edges of strips cut from modelling paste. At first I tried a ball tool however I found that I would get too many areas that were too thin and I did not find the edges ruffled enough. By the second orange ruffle, I moved on to trying a cone tool. I thought that this produced a better ruffle but I felt that it made the edges of paste a bit rough and it was hard on the fingers. I went back to the ball tool for a bit and then I tried making the ruffles with a modelling stick. I think that the modelling stick was the easiest option.

This was an 8-inch cake filled with an orange cream swiss meringue buttercream. To get the 'orange cream' flavour, I used vanilla extract, Cointreau and orange flavouring. The flavour was great, however, as this cake involves a lot of buttercream to fill the 6 layers and crumb coat the cake (I used 8 cups!), a little goes a long way in terms of serving sizes!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Canada Day and Pride weekend!